


Like a Moonbeam There You Were

by Dragonie



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: All That Good Business, Awkwardness, Canon-Typical Violence, Deception, Durance being Durance, During Canon, F/M, Guilt, Moon Godlike Watcher, Slow Burn, Spoilers for both games eventually, when I say violence I mean it starts in Gilded Vale so you know how that be
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-11-14 16:37:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18056162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonie/pseuds/Dragonie
Summary: He was there since the beginning of her journeys, and he came to be one of her fastest and most trusted friends, and then more. But the road there was a long and often messy one, full of secrets and crises and the shadow of the Leaden Key.





	1. i came to town to search for gold

_ chapter 1: i came to town to search for gold _

 

Whispers still flitted at the edges of Noora’s hearing as the trees of Valewood gave way to the sparse farmland of Gilded Vale. Farmers stared as she trudged past, bruised, hungry, and weary down to the bone; muttered to each other in voices not quiet enough to escape her ears. She pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders, tugged at the hood in a futile attempt to cover the glowing crescent on her forehead, found herself missing the solitude of the woods already. At least the caravan folk had had the decency to leave their comments until they thought she was out of earshot.

Adine dogged her steps, huffing and worrying over her companion like the mother of a sickly cub. Noora gave the bear a reassuring scratch behind the ears. Not long to the village, she thought; not long, and there would surely be some answers for what was wrong with her. Had to be.

She smelled the tree before she saw it; the unmistakable carrion-stench of decay, hanging heavy and stagnant in the air. It was strong, too strong for some flyblown carcass in the woods or sick livestock left to rot by the roadside, strong enough to send the bile rising up the back of her throat. Adine caught the scent, too, ears drawn back flat against her skull, sniffing at the air. A seeping feeling of dread pooled in the depths of Noora’s belly as her aching legs dragged her on, deeper into the gullet of Gilded Vale.

When she got closer, saw the rotting bodies dangling from gnarled branches like some obscene crop, it took all her willpower not to spill her meagre lunch right there on the cobblestones.

_ Raedric must be mad _ , she thought to herself as Urgeat blathered on, his face drawn and hungry as a gul’s in the shadow of that monstrous thing. Her eyes kept straying to it, the bodies twisting in the wind, the villagers milling around it, unheeding.  _ This whole town must be mad. _

Her head and gut still reeled, but Urgeat had mentioned an inn, and she stumbled toward it in a daze. She’d rather sleep anywhere but here, right now, but there was no other option; she’d collapse if she pushed on any further. Perhaps tomorrow, she’d wake up, and find something to show her the world hadn’t gone mad after all.

There was a commotion in front of the Black Hound. A hooded man - another outsider, from the sound of things - held his hands up before him, trying (and, apparently, failing) to placate a gaggle of angry townsfolk. They were red-faced and stunk of stale beer, but their eyes were bright with fury and their knives sharp at their belts, and Noora felt the hanging-tree looming at her back like an evil spirit.

She took a deep breath to steady herself, one cautious hand settling on the limb of her bow. She was  _ tired _ , so bone-tired she felt she might collapse any moment down into the cold sticky mud. But there was still more that needed doing. Adine’s comforting bulk settled in step beside her, and she forced her face into the friendliest smile she could manage. One more thing to do, one brewing fight to defuse, and then she could rest.

***

Three bodies lay in the mud before her, the sharp smell of blood mingling with the corpse-stink of the three. Noora swayed on her feet, feeling another lurch of nausea. Adine licked the gore from her claws, unbothered.

“Perhaps I could join you.”

The wizard’s eyes shone hopeful beneath the hood. His face was steady, but his fingers beat a restless tattoo on the cover of his grimoire.

She thought of Calisca and Heodan, bodies barely cooling on the steps of Cilant Lîs; thought of the robed figures, the bîaŵac rattling through her bones, the visions that took over her senses until she couldn’t tell what was real.

Aloth offered her a weak smile, the expression softening his features. It wasn’t fair of her, she knew, to drag him into this, but she wasn’t sure she could face this on her own.

“Let’s go.” Noora wrestled the tired smile back on her face and hoped that she sounded a lot stronger than she felt.

***

The fare at the Black Hound was rather better than the previous week’s, Aloth thought - something about his new travelling companion saving the cook from bandits? - but the godlike woman still picked uncertainly over her pie. He could hardly blame her, of course; a town reeking of cow dung and burnt stew didn’t exactly whet the appetite, and that was just upwind of that awful tree. The same could not be said for her bear, which was currently huddled by the table devouring a bowl of offal with alarming gusto. The other patrons gave them a wide berth, which was a small blessing.

She made polite conversation as they ate, asking about Aedyr and wizardry and his time in the Dyrwood, and he answered what he dared, which admittedly wasn’t much. Mercifully, she did not have any more questions about Iselmyr’s little… outburst in front of the inn, although he suspected that that was more out of a sense of discretion than any particular skill at bluffing on his part.

_ I dinnae conne why ye’d go an join such a sleekit lot, lad _ , Iselmyr had scolded him once, not long after his initiation,  _ when ye canna tell a lie tae save yer own hide _ . Much as it galled him to admit it, she might’ve had a point.

He found himself casting furtive, hurried glances at her across the table, considering how to press for more information on these “robed figures” she had mentioned without arousing her suspicions further.

“You mentioned you came in with a caravan?” He took another sip of watery wine and regretted it immediately.

She nodded, her mouth a thin line. The flickering firelight brought out the dark circles under her white eyes.

“We were attacked, and then there was the bîaŵac, and…” She waved a hand helplessly. “Well, I’m the only one left.”

“Oh. Forgive me,” he replied hastily, inwardly cursing himself. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you.” Noora shot him a wan smile, smoothing a curl of white hair behind her ear. “Calisca had a sister in Gilded Vale.” Her brow furrowed, barely visible behind the horn. “Gods, I have to tell her, don’t I?”

“Perhaps we should get some rest, first.” There was little chance of him learning more at this point, he reasoned, and she looked so worn down and despondent that he couldn’t help but feel for her. He supposed he must have looked just as miserable after the first week here without contact. “It’s getting late, anyway.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” She gave another grateful little smile and rose unsteadily from her seat, remnants of her pie forgotten. She hesitated for a moment as she brushed past him, and laid a hand on his shoulder for the briefest of heartbeats before heading up the stairs, bear padding along behind her. It was a slight, soft pressure, her fingertips warmed by the fire. He tried not to flinch.

Aloth stayed in the common room for a while longer, his mind an unsettling roil of emotions and thoughts he didn’t have the energy to sift through, and finished off the terrible wine as he wondered just what he’d managed to get himself into this time.

***

The bed, unfortunately, was as lumpy as ever, and yet another night he twisted and turned in vain trying to find a comfortable position.

“D’ye take a fancy tae the strange glouwin lass, then?”

Even worse, Iselmyr had decided to make up for her good behaviour at dinner by coming to torment him now, speaking low and salacious through his mouth.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he hissed, turning aside and huddling into the scant bedclothes as if that would somehow ward her away.

“Ye connt those shiny marks on her, aye?” Iselmyr crowed, waggling her - no,  _ his _ \- eyebrows. “Wantae see if she’s got ‘em all over?”

“Iselmyr!” He buried his face in the mattress, groaning. “Don’t you  _ dare _ .”

It was always disconcerting, hearing her make lewd suggestions with his own tongue, but that was the least of his worries. Iselmyr’s favour was akin to her scorn in its propensity to get him in trouble. There were old schoolfellows whom he still couldn’t look in the eye since the wretched woman had seized his voice to proposition or abuse them. And worst of all, she had the gall to claim she was  _ helping _ him.

“Iselmyr,” he repeated, as quietly as he could. “Do  _ not _ ruin this.”

“Suit yeself, then, lad.” He felt his eyes roll behind closed lids. “Dinna fash yeself heedin auld Iselmyr when she’s-”

Aloth bit down hard on his lip, pulled the pillow over his ears, and prayed desperately for sleep to come.

***

Noora fell asleep the moment her body hit the mattress, and had little cause to think on her new friend until the next morning, when she realised that she would have to explain “my dream told me we should go back to the tree and speak to a dead animancer” in a way that didn’t make her sound like an utter madwoman. He’d taken her talk of hooded figures and strange ruins well enough, at least. She hadn’t known many wizards; perhaps this sort of thing was normal for them.

It would probably be awkward for a while, she mused as she donned her brigandine with practiced ease, as they got to know one another, and she still felt a bit guilty getting him involved in her… whatever was going on, but it was a comfort to think there was someone by her side. She’d find a way to repay his kindness, she promised herself.

***

His new companion was already in the common room when Aloth came down, giving him a friendly wave as he descended the stairs.

“I’m sorry about last night,” Noora said amicably, passing him a bowl of lukewarm porridge. “I hope I didn’t come across too unfriendly. I was near falling asleep at the table.”

“Not at all.” He took the bowl from her and sat down opposite, teeth worrying at his sore lip. “You seem much restored, at any rate.”

“I suppose I am.” The godlike tipped her head thoughtfully, watching him with those milky eyes. “I have… well, maybe not  _ answers _ , but  _ directions _ , at least.”

“Oh?” The spoon paused halfway to his mouth as he considered what would be an appropriate, non-suspicious amount of curiosity to show. “Do tell.”

“Well…” She winced, clasping her hands together. “This is probably going to sound quite insane…”

Forty minutes later, they were standing before the hanging-tree, Noora staring in deep and silent contemplation at the suspended corpse of a dwarf, and Aloth had to agree with her on that assessment. Townsfolk gave the three of them - elf, godlike, and bear - plenty of curious looks as they went about their business. The cold morning air brought out the gooseflesh on Aloth’s bare arms, and he began to fear he’d never get the stench of death out of his nostrils.

After what felt like an age, Noora took a deep breath, stepped back from the dead dwarf, and told him she was a Watcher.

There was no trace of guile in her face; indeed, in the short time he’d known her he’d found her to be almost painfully earnest.

Well, well. 

It had to be connected to her encounter with those robed figures, didn’t it? The ones who must surely be Leaden Key? Granted, he had no idea what the Leaden key was doing with Watchers, or bîaŵacs, or ancient Engwithan machinery, but secrecy had always been their watchword. It had seemed like such a clever strategy, once - no one cell knowing what the others were doing, so the whole would survive the fall of the individual - and he had believed, trusted as the others did that his actions yet formed a note of a symphony that was orchestrated to perfection.

It was only in these last few months, trapped in Gilded Vale with no handler, no direction, and no idea of who to contact or what to do next, that he had come to realise how  _ frustrating _ this culture of secrecy could be. And now, here he was, in this miserable Dyrwoodan mudhole, apparently forgotten by his own organisation.

“I appreciate your honesty,” he’d told her, and then “it’s probably wise for us to share these things,” and even as he said the words they tasted foul and oily on his tongue. He was used to deceit, in a way, hiding his Awakening deep inside himself, knowing how much of a distance to keep from others before the little lies would have to become big, unwieldy ones. His work in the Leaden Key hadn’t been much different: keep out of notice, give a fake name if necessary, have a few harmless falsehoods handy to pass for someone ordinary. In theory, this shouldn’t be much of a change; and it wasn’t as if it hurt her, not to know his stake in it, since he was just as clueless on how to track down the Leaden Key as she was. In theory.

Even so, he felt the guilt curl up heavy in his belly when she flashed him a quick smile in return.

Angrily, he swallowed it down. He’d always been lacking in determination, always needed a firm push to have the willpower to see things through. He’d already decided on this course; it would be far too like him to back off and return to aimlessness when things got difficult.

_ Things will be back to normal soon enough _ , he told himself, and wished he believed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Work title is from "Moonbeam" by Lord Huron. Title of this chapter is from "The Hanging Tree" by Marty Robbins because I think I'm clever.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!


	2. if you've got visions of the past

_ chapter 2: if you’ve got visions of the past _

 

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever been to Caed Nua?” Noora rubbed her upper lip with an idle finger as she frowned down at the map.

“No,” Edér turned his head towards her, eyebrows raised. He rested his back against Adine’s bulk, scratching the bear behind the ears as she let out a low rumble of contentment. Edér felt… comfortable, Noora had come to find, like a friend long parted rather than new, filling the long walks with easy chatter and pointing out every woodland animal on the way. “Can’t say I make a habit of crawlin’ round old ruins.” His sunburned face crinkled up into a grin. “‘Least, not before I met you.”

“Hah!” Durance barked out an ugly laugh, and gave one of coneys roasting over the fire an impatient prod with the tip of his staff. Noora made a mental note not to eat that one. “Best you watch yourself, Eothasian, or she’ll have you running at her whim like only a woman knows how!”

The two of them steadfastly ignored him.

“Hey, Aloth!” Edér called out across the fire. “You know anything about Caed Nua?”

“Pardon?” Aloth, nose-deep in his grimoire, looked up for what must have been the first time since they’d set down camp. He had the grace, at least, to give an embarrassed cough. “Oh… yes. No, I’m afraid I know very little about the place.” His thumb rubbed at the corner of a page, smoothing down a dog-ear. “But if there is a Watcher there, I’m sure his expertise will prove invaluable with your predicament, Noora.” His smile to her was small but encouraging, and she returned it readily. She liked Aloth, even if he did turn green about the gills when she tried to show him how to field-dress a hare. He was often quiet, even reticent at times, but he was polite and thoughtful, and the first since the bîaŵac to offer her his friendship, and that counted for more than she could say.

“I suppose we’ll find out when we get there.” She sighed and rolled up the map, tucking it carefully into a belt pouch.

Durance grunted.

“Would get there a lot faster, Watcher, if you stopped taking on burdens from every poor sod with a problem along the way.”

“Anyway,” Noora continued, pointedly not looking at him. “I promised Aufra I’d speak with the herbalist down in Anslög’s Compass, so we may head that way first.”

“Sure, why not?” Edér fished his pipe out from his pack, tapping it a couple times against his bracer. “Could use a day at the beach. Reckon they have seals out there? Heard tell they’re like some kinda big sea dogs.”

Aloth’s face crumpled into a mischievous grin, the same one he wore in spurts days ago, taunting drunks before the Black Hound. He ambled over from his spot by the fire and gave Noora a playful nudge in the ribs.

“‘Twill be a right fine sight, watchin him swim all round in circles chasin the puir beasties.” His eyes glimmered.

“You never know,” Noora snickere, despite herself. “He might find an animal friend of his own and stop hogging mine!”

Adine gave a sleepy moan of complaint, and Edér chuckled.

“Ain’t my fault if I have a way with the ladies.” He lit his pipe with a wink, stretching out against the bear’s furry back. “Gotta say, I like this side of you, Aloth. Get your head out of them books some.”

“It is good to see you feeling more relaxed around us.” Noora smiled at Aloth, gave him a friendly box on the arm, like she’d done with her brother a hundred times before. It was more more awkward, hesitant, doing that to someone not family, but there was still something comfortingly familiar about it.

He must not have seen it that way, though, for his face fell immediately from a grin to a grimace, and he backed away a step or two.

“Excuse me,” he stammered out, smoothing down some imaginary crease in his leather armour. “I, ah-  I really must get back to my studies.”

“Ah, wait, I’m sorry, Aloth.” Noora cringed, bringing her hands up apologetically. Damn Hel, she’d gotten too familiar too fast. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

He cocked his head to one side for a heartbeat, and then shook it.

“Ah, no, that’s-” He worried at his lip, eyes wide, fingers dancing nervously at the hem of his armour. “You’ve done nothing wrong, I just- I should really be preparing for tomorrow. Spellcasting, you know.” And so he retreated to the edges of their little circle of firelight, seating himself on a rock and burying his head back deep into the pages of his grimoire, his face hidden from her view.

“What’s eating him?” Edér nudged his head in Aloth’s direction, leaving trails of pipesmoke as he moved.

“I’m not sure.” Noora’s voice was soft as she frowned at the wizard, guilt roiling in her chest. Despite Aloth’s words, she couldn’t shake the feeling that his sudden change in mood was her fault, after all.

“Hah! Seems to only flesh the elf cares to touch is his own parchments,” Durance sneered, with a leering look at Noora that made her shudder beneath the brigandine.

As usual, none of them gave him the pleasure of a response.

***

“Have you ever chased a skirt, wizard, or do you merely hide behind them?”

The priest’s face was as alarmingly sweaty as ever, a familiar sneer twisting his features - not that they were particularly pleasant to begin with, Aloth thought bitterly.

“Don’t pawn your personal problems off on me.”

He snapped his grimoire shut and stalked off towards the rocks. He had no idea why the odious man had chosen to bother him. With Noora having wandered off somewhere and Edér deep in conversation with Ranga and her xaurip friend, perhaps the Magranite was simply desperate for someone on whom to spill his bile.

“They will use you,” Durance called after him. “Cast you off when it suits them. Never speak another word to you.”

“Maybe they just don’t answer to ‘fiery whore,’” Aloth shot back, and regretted it. Responding only seemed to encourage the man. Maybe Edér had the right idea, electing to ignore him altogether.

Mercifully, no further abuse was hurled his way, but Aloth was of no mind yet to head back to the campfire, not until he was sure the priest had grown tired of taunting him. Else, it was only a matter of time until Iselmyr surfaced, and he wasn’t quite ready to explain to his new companions why he’d suddenly snapped and broken an old man’s spine in three places.

(Even if, he had to admit, some small part of him took great satisfaction in the image.)

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he nearly tripped right over Noora, sitting cross-legged on the shore, staring out at the waves.

“Oh, ah, Noora-” Aloth stammered, stopping his momentum just in time. “I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

“Don’t worry about it.” The ranger climbed deftly to her feet, brushing sand from her thighs. Her face was lit up by the dim glow of her crescent horn, her eyes the same silver-white as the moon over the darkened sea. She looked strangely illusionary in the darkness, her smile soft as she regarded him. She jerked her head in the direction of the campfire, curls falling about her shoulders.

“Durance?”

“Ah.” He grimaced. “So you heard that.”

“I think most of the fish in the sea heard it.” She met his gaze - he thought? - with a subtle twitch of her lips.

“Yes,” he laughed nervously, scuffing the tip of his boot against the sand. “I suppose they must have.”

“If you want, I could ‘accidentally’ put an arrow through his head,” Noora offered, and between her calm tone and composed face, for a second there, Aloth wasn’t sure if she was joking. Then her face split into a cheeky grin, wrinkles forming at the corners of her blank, silvery eyes. “You reckon he’d pop like a balloon, with all that hot air in him?”

“Noora?” His shock must have registered in his expression, for the grin vanished as quickly as it appeared. A pity, he thought vaguely. It had rather suited her.

“I’m sorry.” She scrunched up her face apologetically. “That was... utterly indelicate of me.”

“No need.” He took a deep breath, grimoire held tight against his chest. “I rather feel I should be the one too apologise.”

“What for?” Her head cocked to the side. “If you mean the thing with Durance,  _ he’s _ the one who-”

“No, not that.” He shook his head, interrupting her. “I was rather… abrupt with you and Edér, the other night.”

“Ah! No,” she waved a hand. “I made you uncomfortable; that’s on me.”

She didn’t understand, he thought; but then again, how could she? She and Edér seemed to have taken Iselmyr for some secret brash streak he kept hidden most times, and he couldn’t very well disabuse them of the notion, much as it pained him to be conflated with her. At least they didn’t regard him as dangerously unstable. Not yet, anyway.

“In any case,” Noora continued, dipping her head. “Don’t feel you have to push yourself. I’m just glad you’re here, whatever form that takes.” Her smile looked nervous around the edges.

“Oh,” Aloth swallowed, rather taken aback by this unexpected display of emotion. It was gratifying, to be the subject of appreciation, for once, and it was embarrassing, to have it stated out loud, and it made him squirm to realise that she, knowing nothing of his ulterior motives, must think him a far more steadfast ally than he actually was. “Ah. Thank you.” His eyes scanned the beach for something, anything, to talk about that wasn’t a reminder of the awkward mess in which he’d found himself, and alighted upon the waves. That’s right; she’d been staring at the horizon when he’d come upon her, hadn’t she? “Thinking of home?”

“A little,” she admitted, with a glance out over the sea. “Completely the wrong direction, I know, but…”

“I imagine the Dyrwood is a far cry from the Living Lands,” he said, not without sympathy. It’d had taken him a long time to adjust to the miserable climate, for one thing.

She nodded.

“I miss the valleys.” There was a far-off look on her face. “I used to make maps, you know?”

“Oh?” He raised his eyebrows. He had known Noora was something of a frontierswoman, but to tell the truth, he wouldn’t have pegged her for a cartographer.

“I used to explore every valley we came across.” A fond little smile crept across her face. “Draw a map of it and sell it to traders, make a little money for the clan. It wasn’t always an easy life, but for the most part we were happy.” It may have been his imagination, or a quirk of the low light, but there seemed to be more of a shine to her luminous eyes than usual. “The Dyrwood is a… very different place.”

“That’s putting it kindly.” Aloth felt the corner of his mouth quirk up. And then, because it seemed like the right thing to do in the situation, and because he did have some genuine academic curiosity, he said: “You’ll have to tell me more about the Living Lands sometime.”

Her smile was slow but genuine.

“I’d like that,” she said, and waved back in the vague direction of Ranga’s camp. “Shall we? With any luck, Durance will have self-combusted by now.”

“Would that the gods were so merciful.” He fell into step beside her, a little easier than before.

***

“Poor woman, poor woman,” the old Watcher had sighed past his madness, his eyes despondent as he pronounced sentence on her, on both of them, and Aloth saw Noora’s face  _ fall _ , even as his own heart sank down, deep into the ancient stones beneath the ruined keep, and he remembered, once more, that the gods were not merciful at all.

***

They bedded down that night in the old barracks. It wasn’t Noora’s first choice. Right now, it wouldn’t even have be her fiftieth; for all the Steward’s gentle reassurances, she still felt ghosts in every crumbling stone. They’d buried Maerwald outside the fort - it seemed the right thing to do, under the circumstances - but the old man’s presence, and the fate he’d foretold for her, still loomed large in this place, clung to it like the flecks of his blood that still speckled her boots.

She couldn’t sleep, not on the cracked stones, not in the corners choked by cobwebs or the air thick with the stench of mouldering old bedding. Not with Kana and Edér being so  _ nice _ , and  _ concerned _ , and  _ very politely _ not mentioning the implications of Maerwald’s words, and shooting worried glances her way when they thought she wasn’t looking, until Durance’s complete apathy became almost a relief. Not with Maerwald’s last moments playing and replaying in her head, the poor man’s mind consumed by someone else’s memories; a mirror, or so it seemed, of her own future.

Noora was suffocating in here. She slipped from her bedroll and padded out of the room, her footfalls masked by Edér’s snores and Adine’s sleepy rumbles. She needed to get out of here, go where she could  _ breathe _ , and see the stars, and feel the breeze on her skin.

The shadows were deep in the main hall, but the glow of torchlight from the library gave her pause. Was Aloth still up? He’d wandered off some time ago to check the library, he’d said, in case any books survived which might shed some light on her condition, but she would’ve thought he’d slipped into bed by now, unobtrusive as usual.

_ Do not be alarmed _ . The Steward’s voice in her head gave her more of a start than the light did.  _ It is merely your Aedyran friend. _

__ _ Thanks _ , Noora thought back, still not quite sure if the living statue could hear her. She approached the library door, hanging half off its hinges, and rapped her knuckles on the frame.

“Aloth?” She called softly as she entered the room, and heard the short thump of a heavy volume hitting the floor, followed by a muffled yet genteel curse.

Aloth stood before the shelves, several piles of tattered, falling-apart volumes piled neatly on the table beside him. He picked up the fallen book, leafed quickly through the pages with his long fingers, and thunked it a little too forcefully atop the nearest stack - thought, she noted, he took care to line up the corners afterwards. He turned to her as she drew nearer, a couple strands of dark hair hanging loose about his face. He waved a hand helplessly, his eyes tired.

“Water damage, mildew, decay… No one’s bothered to properly maintain this place in far too long.” He cast his eyes across shelf after shelf of unreadable tomes. “All this knowledge, lost from carelessness.”

“Aloth…” She reached for his shoulder, then thought better of it. “You should get some sleep. You must have been down here for hours.”

“I-” He stared out the doorway, as if he’d only just realised how dark it had gotten, and gave a forlorn little chuckle. “I suppose I have, haven’t I?” His eyes travelled cautiously over her. “I… take it you couldn’t sleep, yourself?”

“Yes,” she barked out a bitter laugh. “Being told that you’re going slowly, unavoidably mad does tend to keep you awake of a night.”

He pulled back, eyes widening, and Noora realised she’d said that rather more snippishly than she intended. She winced, running a hand through messy hair. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair of me. None of this is your fault.” She sighed, caught his eye, and forced a smile. “Honestly, you’ve been nothing but helpful.”

“It’s quite all right.” He flashed her an awkward smile. He always seemed embarrassed by her gratitude; perhaps Aedyrans were usually more reticent about such things. “It’s been rather a long day for us all, you especially.”

“Mm.” She folded her arms, leaned back against a creaking shelf. “I just… don’t know what to make of it, I guess; not yet. I keep hoping that Maerwald was- was mistaken, somehow, but…” She trailed off with a shrug.

“Entirely understandable.” There was compassion in Aloth’s gaze as he looked at her. “Perhaps we will find more answers in Defiance Bay.”

“That’d make a nice change.” Noora smiled sadly. “Frankly, I feel like I know less about what’s happening to me with every passing day.”

Aloth gave her a curious look, at that, and opened his mouth as if to say something. Then he closed it again.

“Is something wrong?” She asked him, brow furrowing in confusion.

“No, nothing.” He shook his head, his lips forming a thin smile. “Just a passing thought. I suppose the hour is catching up with me.”

“You’re probably right,” Noora admitted with some reluctance. She didn’t want to head back to her bedroll and face her thoughts alone. She’d rather stay here and talk with Aloth, about magic, Aedyr, the Living Lands; Hel, even the weather would do. But they had a long day’s journey looming ahead of them.

“Shall we?” He took the torch from its bracket and motioned for her to go first. She smiled at him as she stepped past.

“Oh, and Aloth?” Noora stopped in the doorway and turned back to him. 

“Yes?”

“Thank you. For the talk, and...” She nodded at the table, stacked with ruined books. “You were looking for something to help me, right? I’m truly grateful for that. I mean it.”

“It’s- no problem.”

Maybe it was a trick of the flickering torchlight, but she thought she saw a strange grimace pass across his face as she turned away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title this time is from "Ghost Towns" by First Aid Kit.
> 
> Dialogue between Aloth and Durance is a banter ripped shamelessly from the game; I can't take credit for it (and with Durance, nor would I want to).
> 
> Sorry in advance if my update schedule becomes a little erratic; thesis writing is hard and also I have another fic or two in the works, fool that I am.
> 
> As always, thanks so much for reading! It really warms my heart to see that someone other than me is interested in these two nerds, haha.


	3. take the mask off when you speak to me

_ chapter 3: take the mask off when you speak to me _

 

The air of the catacombs was musty, rank with centuries of dust and mildew and mouldering bones, but it was like a sweet spring breeze compared to the temple of Woedica.

Aloth gulped it down gladly as they climbed the stairs, his head still reeling, legs feeling as though they would give out under him at any moment. The masks, the passphrases, the cloying secrecy… it was all terribly, horribly familiar. Once, he’d seen it all as a bit of pageantry: the secrecy not unwarranted by the gravity of their mission, if perhaps unnecessarily dramatic in execution; the Woedican overtones not entirely to his taste, but hardly uncommon in his homeland; and there was something comforting about its structure, the rituals and their unchanging order.

It had never seemed quite so  _ sinister _ , before now.

Maerwald had merely confirmed what Aloth had suspected from the start: whatever Noora had stumbled into, the Leaden Key was somehow involved. Kana had insisted that they’d sent assassins after him - a harmless scholar, from all Aloth had seen, who wanted simply to learn more of Engwithan history - and yet… and yet part of him had held out hope that this was all the product of some grave misunderstanding, or an individual cell gone rogue; that the hand he’d trusted to guide him hadn’t had some mysterious, alarming agenda that he’d been blindly furthering until now, was still just the protective force against the dangers of animancy that he’d once believed it to be.

It was becoming increasingly apparent that this was not the case.

And now the weight of it all was crushing down on his chest like the stones overhead. Hiding his motive for joining Noora had never quite sat easy with him before, but he’d always assured himself that it was a harmless deception, one that would affect her little. What would she say, if she learned of his affiliations  _ now _ ? What would any of them say? They’d brand him a traitor, a spy. Surely they’d never believe that his first encounter with Noora was happenstance, that he had no ill intentions towards her or Kana; he probably wouldn’t, were he in their shoes. They’d cast him out, and returning to Aedyr was out of the question, with how many agents the Leaden Key had there ready to hunt down deserters, and worse, he’d have to face his father as an abject failure, and - as it dawned on him, heart hammering in his breast, breath coming shallow into his lungs - he truly had  _ nowhere else to go _ , now; no direction, no purpose, no doors left open to him, and if he was perfectly honest, that thought  _ terrified  _ him, more than assassins in dark corners, more than Maerwald’s dire warnings.

He could  _ feel _ Iselmyr straining at the edges of his consciousness, now, no doubt sensing his distress like a shark smelling blood in the water, and he had to fight to keep her down, silent,  _ hidden _ -

_ Or _ , the thought came to him as he stumbled over a loose flagstone, hand on the cool stone wall to steady himself, Noora turning back to him with a worried look on her face,  _ maybe not _ .

Iselmyr. Now that was a truth he  _ could _ tell; indeed, one that was bound to reveal itself sooner or later, since it seemed he’d be keeping close company with this group for the indeterminate future. It was a truth Noora wouldn’t reject him for;  _ couldn’t _ , surely, as she was going through something similar herself - and that, too, was a novel concept for him. She might find herself rather disillusioned in his “kindness” following the death of Maerwald, but she deserved to know  _ that _ much of the truth, at least.

“A moment, please.” He willed his breath to calm as she tilted her head to the side, curious. “I feel I should explain myself.”

***

Edér was taken aback by Aloth’s revelation, his eyebrows raised high to his sandy hairline. Pallegina’s eyes narrowed with cautious curiosity, while Sagani listened intently, giving a little nod of contemplation every now and then. Kana was practically bursting at the seams with questions he wanted to ask.

But Noora, well… to be honest, she had already started to put the pieces together already, as they had marched through Woodend Plains. The different voices, with different personalities; the muttering to himself, after Maerwald died… it all seemed embarrassingly clear, once she could look back on it with eyes unclouded by panic.

And then she’d remembered the conversation she’d had with him the previous night, and… Well.

It all made perfect sense, of course. It was only natural that he would be concerned for his own future, after all; Maerwald’s condition must surely have been as worrisome to him as it was to her. Bit presumptuous of her, really, to assume it must have revolved around her; he was polite enough not to say anything at the time, which only made it more mortifying in hindsight. Had he not already done so much for her? Offered her plenty of support? Been ready to follow her before either of them even knew of Caed Nua?

Therefore, she wasn’t disappointed in the slightest that his earlier panic hadn’t been concern for her. Really. That would be terribly unreasonable of her, and she had always thought of herself as quite a reasonable person, so that could hardly be the case.

“Yet you never said anything?” Aloth raised one thin eyebrow as they moved through the catacombs. They took the roundabout way, just in case any Leaden Key agents slipped out through the same entrance, though Sagani’s keen eyes had yet to spot any.

“I figured you’d tell me when you were ready,” she said with a shrug. It was all perfectly casual; and if her movements  _ were _ a bit stiff, her tone a little forced, well, surely that was just awkwardness over her embarrassing performance the other night.

“Ah.” Aloth looked at her with a thoughtful little frown on his face; quite unnecessary, of course. “I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to de-” He halted, took a deep breath, clasped his hands together. “I didn’t intend to mislead about my concern. I am worried for you, truly.” His brow furrowed. He looked sincere, which of course he was, because she had absolutely no reason to worry that he might feel otherwise.

“I know,” Noora’s smile came a little harder than before, but that was probably the exhaustion. “I’m not hurt, really.”

Aloth opened his mouth- and then they stepped out of the silent catacombs and into the noisy streets of Copperlane, the sudden sunlight nearly blinding her, passers-by turning their heads towards the armed and weary group, and Aloth turned away with a thoughtful frown.

***

“You’re safe,” Noora took Aloth’s hand and squeezed, a lump forming in her throat as she watched his brows knit, the muscles of his jaw twitch in the throes of terrible memory. “Everything’s fine.”

Her earlier thoughts seemed so  _ petty _ , now. Aloth was her friend. He was her friend, and he was hurting, and she would do everything she could to help him because that was what a good friend would do, and she hoped someday she would really be one.

So she squeezed tighter, held on as Iselmyr and Aloth spit fire at one another, until he woke from his trance and wanted no more than to put the whole place behind him.

***

The first lamps of the evening were being lit as they left the Sanitarium, the last orange traces of sunset still lingering in the clouds, a slight chill in the air. A pack of garrulous young people, dressed in noble finery, pushed past Aloth without even looking at him, heading up the steps toward the welcoming lights of the Charred Barrel. It was, by all appearances, a perfectly ordinary evening in Brackenbury, and the normalcy of it all made the emotional outburst of the past hour or so feel rather like the bad dream he wished it was.

The notes he’d “recovered” from Bellasege shifted inside his leathers with every step, reminding him otherwise.

“Maybe we should call it a day, huh?” If that sidelong look of concern was Edér trying to be discreet, then he would’ve made a worse spy than even Aloth himself.

“Yes,” Kana agreed, rolling his shoulders, the move just a little too orchestrated to be convincing. “There must be something about the mattresses in that inn; my muscles have been aching all day.”

“Ac,” Pallegina nodded, clasping her feathered hands. “We would all benefit from some rest.” She, at least, possessed the requisite tact not to sneak glances at Aloth as she said so; a true product of the diplomatic service, he thought wearily.

“You’re right.” It was sometimes hard to tell where, exactly, Noora’s pupil-less eyes were pointing, but she was facing him with a worried frown; never one for pretenses, her. His hand felt oddly warm when he looked at her. “Let’s head back for tonight.”

Sagani said nothing, but but gave him a motherly pat on the forearm when she walked past.

“Hey, Aloth,” Edér’s big hand clapped him slightly too hard on the back when they reached the Goose and Fox. “Buy you and the lady a drink?”

“Ah… No, thank you.” Aloth cringed away, feeling his companions’ curious eyes still on him. “I think I may turn in early, if it’s all the same to you.” To their credit, they’d been largely  _ polite _ about the whole affair, even understanding, but in some respects that only made him feel even awkwarder.

Back in his school days, he’d been plagued by persistent nightmares about turning up to his practicals utterly naked (a thought about which Iselmyr never failed to have a good laugh at his expense). For some reason, he couldn’t help but remember that feeling now, with the memories he’d most wanted to forget laid bare in front of everyone.

“Dinna see why ye had tae go an turn doun a perfectly good pint, lad,” Iselmyr grumbled through his mouth as he laid on his bed, trying to distract himself with Llengrath’s latest treatise on abjurations. 

He bit back an angry retort, trying to keep in mind what Noora had said about her -  _ Could she really mean to protect him? Surely not, and yet… _ \- when he heard a rapping at the door.

On the other side was Noora herself, a worried crease folding her brow behind the crescent horn.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” she began hesitantly.

“No, not at all,” he replied, perhaps a little too quickly. “Er, do come in.”

She gave a grateful nod and closed the door behind her, fidgeting. She was silent for several moments - and then, just as he worried he might have to say something first, break the tension, she took a deep breath.

“I never thanked you properly for sharing that.” Her words came out all in a rush, as if she’d been holding back the torrent for some time. “About your Awakening, I mean. I know it must have taken you a lot of courage to come clean about Iselmyr, and I appreciate that, really.”

She gave him a nervous little smile, and there was a part of him that wanted to blurt out, to tell her that he hadn’t “come clean” at all, to finally let go of every miserable secret festering inside him over the past month.

“You did try to help me with her,” he said instead, because doing that would have been suicide. “That’s hardly nothing.”

“‘Sides, if ye’re wonderin how tae thank the lad proper-like,” Iselmyr added, with a saucy wink. “Ye’re in the right room fer it.”

She dissolved into crowing laughter, which turned to Aloth holding his palms over his burning face as he regained control.

“I am  _ so _ sorry,” he stammered. “I-I have no control over her.”

A soft little sound came from Noora’s direction, and looking through the gaps in his fingers he found, to his utmost relief, that it was a chuckle instead of a gasp of disgust.

“No, it’s fine.” Her hand was over her mouth, her shoulders trembling, mirth shining in her eyes. “You know, I don’t know how I ever could’ve thought you were the same person.”

“I doubt it was my convincing explanation at the time,” he murmured ruefully, reluctantly allowing his hands to drop, his cheeks still feeling red as a sonnread.

“No, perhaps not.” She grinned at him, and then, to his considerable surprise, reached out and took his hand in hers, her skin warm against his. “We’ll get through this mess together. You and me. As friends?” There was a hopeful, uncertain lilt to her voice at the end.

The word made his heart lurch, and he struggled to keep his expression under control. Her smile crinkled the corners of her pearly eyes, and again he felt the guilt twist like a worm in his belly, eating away at his insides. He was in too deep, now; far too deep to extricate himself.

“As friends.” He squeezed her fingers and twisted his face into an approximation of a smile.

And so Noora left him to his rest, looking quite happy, and Iselmyr seized his voice once more to groan:

“Oh, ye’ve gone and done it now, laddie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title this time is from "Dilly" by Band of Horses!
> 
> Thanks for reading, everyone! :)

**Author's Note:**

> Phew, it's been a long time since I last wrote fanfic and even longer since I started a longfic project! Ph.D. has been kicking my arse this past forever. Anyway, I started playing these games over the last few months and I love these characters to bits! Especially Aloth, that awkward wizard nerd lmao. Obsidian owns me yet again I guess.
> 
> Anyway, thanks so much for reading! The next chapter might be a while since I'm still working on the structure of the fic and also decided to get into three projects at once after a long hiatus because I am an idiot who never learns. So unfortunately I can't really give a timeline or guarantee a consistent update schedule but I will continue to work on it steadily so long as circumstances allow!
> 
> Fic title is from Moonbeam by Franz Ferdinand; chapter title is from The Hanging Tree by Marty Robbins because I think I'm so clever.
> 
> Thanks again!


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